It has been a remarkable year for the Telegraph Media Group's chairman, Aidan Barclay.

Remarkable not only because of the Telegraph's MPs' expenses scoop – but also because the two national newspapers Barclay oversees, the Daily and Sunday Telegraph, finished the year since the last MediaGuardian 100 with the same two editors as they had when it began.

It was a rare instance of continuity in five years of upheaval since Sir David (Aidan's father) and Sir Frederick Barclay paid £665m for the Telegraph Media Group.

There has since been an extraordinary turnover of staff, with seven different editors on the two papers. To the Barclays' supporters, the papers were being dragged kicking and screaming into the digital age under their editor-in-chief, Will Lewis. To their detractors, it was nothing short of a disembowelment.

In the past 12 months the Telegraph titles relaunched in full colour. But there was also more upheaval, with the removal of all casual staff, and the departure of columnists such as Craig Brown and AN Wilson.

As the famously reclusive brothers' representative at Telegraph HQ, Barclay is in charge of the day-to-day running of the Telegraph Media Group and also oversees another part of the Barclays' publishing empire, the Spectator.

Does he interfere with the papers' editorial line? The former Sunday Telegraph editor Dominic Lawson said yes. Daily Telegraph editor Will Lewis, with whom Barclay speaks on a weekly basis, says no.

Barclay turned down four invitations to appear before a House of Lords communications committee investigating media ownership, saying it was not in the "commercial interests" of the Telegraph group – concerns that were obviously not shared by Rupert Murdoch and Michael Grade, who gave evidence to the committee. Its chairman, Lord Fowler, said his non-appearance was "objectionable".

Barclay's aversion to the public eye is shared by Sir David and Sir Frederick, who live in a castle on a private island in the Channel Islands. Their business empire includes Littlewoods, the Ritz hotel in London and the Woolworths brand, which was bought after the high street store went out of business last year.

The brothers are notoriously sensitive to criticism and their willingness to resort to the courts to counter critics has won them few friends in the media.

They were unwillingly propelled into the spotlight last year in a dispute that saw them temporarily withdraw investment from the neighbouring island of Sark in a row over its system of government.

But the year will be remembered for the Telegraph's expenses story. It was the scoop that kept on giving, dominating the Daily and Sunday Telegraph front pages for more than a month, leaving their competitors trailing.